The four of us huddle in the dorm room, lights low, a single candle burns on the coffee table. The candle sits in a mountain of wax covering what was simply a Budweiser bottle just a few hours ago. Each of us digs at the candle, at the wax-mound, with glowing hot paperclips. Heat the paperclip in the flickering flame, sculpt the wax; heat, sculpt, repeat.
Profoundly drunk—yet hyper-aware, attuned to our surroundings. Deafening music rattles the room. Whining guitars, pounding bass. Each note dissected and analyzed. Our sharpened senses register the smallest nuances—the pulse, the electricity in the room.
Our dilated pupils catch the slightest movements. All except for the half-full bottle of beer sharing a bookshelf with the stereo speaker. Ever-so-slowly, the bottle has vibrated its way to the edge of the shelf. It teeters. Eight eyes snap to attention, watching. The bottle tips, plunges to the carpeted floor.
It hits just beyond parallel, spits out a splash of beer and bounces up straight. It lands squarely upright and sticks the landing. A small fizz of foam escapes from the neck. But barely enough to dampen the carpet. We dissolve into laughter.
A half an hour later, the experience has climaxed. We begin to sober up.
The Other Stuff 
What was playing that caused the beer to take the plunge?
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Probably Space Truckin.
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Sounds like you had a ball on Mars.
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It’s the sobriety paradox. I’d never go back to the era I remember with longing.
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There is a certain longing in such snapshots, isn’t there? But not a longing to return… perhaps just for youth
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That beer bottle knows how to party with the best of them 🙂
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Or it was trying to get the hell out of the room.
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Or…..it was trying to get into the mosh pit!!!
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Yes, maybe. But we called it slam-dancing back then. “Moshing” came along in the nineties–I think. my memory is a little fuzzy.
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Slam dancing sounds like a wrestling move 😂
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Well, your hometown band the Sex Pistols invented it.
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“Every so slowly…It teeters. Eyes snap to attention, watching” I like how you build the slow motion feeling of the bottle falling, but prior to that you have created the sense of everyone being so stoned that their is a disconnect between mind and body, so they are unable to do anything about it. Memories a lot of people may not want to admit to! Well written.
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